You may as well get a column ready about Sabean and Bochy too. Those two have earned the right to get the axe.

FWIW- I also said of Beane that in his mismanagement of the manager position he kept Art Howe around too long, and didn't keep Ken Macha around long enough.

To that I'd also add that Terry Francona was a bench coach and left, and both Ron Washington and Don Wakamatsu were allowed to leave Oakland and go to division competitors in favor of Mr Bland Geren. While their ultimate success is much in question, both Wash and Wakamatsu have put a definable stamp on their clubs. Something no one would ever say of Geren.

Bruce Jenkins over at the SF Chron made a clever point today wondering what it would be like if the A's hired a fiery unpredictable guy like Bobby Valentine. Too bad the decision not to make a hire like that has already cost this club a championship or two. Now it might just be rearranging the chairs on the sinking roster Beane has traded all the A's premier talent of the last several years for.

Shane, please trust me on this one. You don't ever want Bobby Valentine. No how. No way.

Lowell

No argument about Geren, although with baseball the manager is much more a figurehead than in football or basketball. So you could switch Geren with Bochy and get exactly the same results.

Where we separate is this meme of yours about the Bay Area hires not getting hired elsewhere. Each organization has its strengths and weaknesses, and saying everything is the same is at best lazy thinking. At worst, it's wrong.

I think that the Niners' organization, with McCloughan and Singletary, looks to be making the right moves. McCloughan looks much better now that he isn't burdened with Nolan. Whether or not Singletary is the real deal is open to debate, but to presume he wouldn't have been hired elsewhere, considering the Rooney Rule and the number of openings last year, strikes me as at best a little slanted.

The Warriors' and Raiders' organizations have their problems and dysfunctionalities, but I wouldn't equate Don Nelson's position of power within the Warriors to Tom Cable's, nor to their relative competence or incompetence. In fact, I suspect that Cable is probably a better head coach than we'll ever know because of the awfulness of the Raiders' organization.

Just saying.

Bob, You brought up some good points. In particular I agree with your take on Tom Cable.
Cable deserves a chance to show that he can succeed, in spite of Al Davis. Cable maybe just goofy enough to get the job done. He is liked by the players + there is a least some continuity at the head coach position.
Cable did make some good coaching decisions towards the end of last season, and maybe that was the proper experience that was needed.
Everbody knows that he is a puppet for Al Davis, and I say...so what. The rest of the coaches that the Raiders have had have always been in this same type of relationship with Al Davis.
Now back to the A's & Giants...Maybe both of their GM's have outlived their productive years, and maybe it's time that both teams examine their future and consider new candidates to run their teams.

I should have been more specific. Don Nelson could get hired anywhere. But Tom Cable, Mike Singletary, Larry Riley and Bob Geren could not.

The Niners hurried to hire Singletary for no particular good reason and missed out on interviewing other potentially outstanding candidates that came available later. I suppose it's possible he would have been hired by another team, but his door was not being beaten down by any stretch. Jon Gruden, Mike Shanahan, and Mike Holmgren were just a few of the names out there. Instead of one of these offensive minds from the Walsh tree you've got Mike Singletary's school of smashmouth Chicago Bears football. Good luck with that.

I personally think one of the reasons this was done was because it secures the jobs of McCloughan and Jed York from a coach who knows more about personnel and would want to usurp their authority.

On the Raiders, I'm a lifelong Raider fan. The hard truth is that there is no proven commodity out there that would touch that HC job with a ten foot pole. Tom Cable was the only choice, so all there is to do is hope that he turns out to be decent. I highly doubt that Tom Cable could even get an interview for another head coaching job in the league.

And BTW, the Raiders players also lobbied for Joe Bugel once upon a time. When the lunatics of the asylum start lobbying that's a reason for suspicion. In the Raiders case I'm not sure continuity is what you want since the team has been one of the very worst in the NFL over the last several years.

Hey Shane you make some great points, but I strongly disagree on the following;
Don Nelson would not get hired by another NBA team. Although I would like to see that happen, because that would mean that the Warriors would get a new head coach.
The Raiders need continuity at this point in the franchise. I am also a lifelong Raider fan & I am very tired of looking at a new head coach nearly every season. + The Raider players were influenced by having Cable back...Just ask Nnamdi Asomugha if this helped with his decision in signing his contract.

Just because someone is valued within an organization more than generally through the sport does not mean that the person is not valuable.

For ex, people dismiss Singletary because he's not an "Xs and Os" guy. But he replaced Mike Nolan, who was clueless about how to run an offense. Aside from the year he had Norv Turner as OC he constantly delegated authority on the offense to the wrong guy who made the wrong decisions (okay, his first year it didn't matter who the OC was). In football, the head coaching job is all about delegating authority. Nolan couldn't separate himself from the GM job, imposing himself on McCloughan. His "Jumbo" package last year was precisely the wrong defense to use when Martz was calling a high-risk/not much reward offense. It's not ball control when you're always on defense.

Singletary will be judged on how the defense improves this year with Manusky unbridled by Nolan and how the offense under Raye pulls itself together. And if Crabtree becomes a superstar then Singletary's star rises also.

Likewise, Tom Cable puts the team on the field that the Raiders front office gives him. Personally, I'm baffled by some moves they've (read: Al) made, but what was clear is that the team was playing for Cable by the end of last year and that the schemes that Cable used were working. Does that mean success in 2009? We shall see, but I suspect the team will play harder for Cable than that last guy.

I'm not ready to dismiss either Singletary or Cable as nothings even if they weren't on the tip of the NFL insiders' tongues when the coaching merry-go-round got started at the end of the season.

I think that Don Nelson could have been hired in plenty of other cities a few years ago (in fact, he was), but let's face it, he's at the end of his coaching career. Win or lose, after Golden State it's Maui for him, so saying he wouldn't be hired somewhere else is a worthless observation.

Geren and Bochy? It's not their lack of charisma that is sinking local baseball, Lowell. Until Bochy can hit home runs himself or Geren can throw strikes in the high nineties these guys can't do much more than rearrange the deck chairs on their Titanics.

The problem with strong-willed GM's like Bean is that they don't want strong managers around them. When the GM wants to control who plays and where, they need a manager who is going to implement the plan, and not one who wants input on personnel decisions and the final say on who's on the field when and where. Could a LaRussa or Torre play for Bean? Or a Francona or a Baker? Probably not. Would Bean have hired Maddon or Gaston? Not likely. Until he's willing to say, "here's your team, you play 'em" Bean won't attract a top name manager. Until he has a top manager, he's not going to even get a whiff of a ring.

"In my humble opinion the single biggest reason Billy Beane's Moneyball scheming hasn't resulted in a championship is his failure to recognize the value of the manager position." Yeah, sure. It was all the managers' fault. It was the manager that told Jeremy Giambi not to slide in 01; that told Billy Koch to let Pierzynski take him deep in 02; that told Tejada to stop running and Byrnes not to touch home plate in 03. Of course! If only they'd had a manager who told them to win those games, instead of lose them, the A's would have gone to the world series! Why can't Billy Beane see that?!

Larry- you do an excellent of making my point even if it's inadvertent. Managers absolutely must take responsibility for mental errors their players make in games- like Giambi not sliding, Tejada not running and Byrnes not touching the plate (home runs given up by pitchers are not necessarily mental errors).

And generally, what you're describing is my problem with the A's playing style under Beane's OBP is everything strategy. They put no pressure on the defense or the pitchers. It's wait, walk, and wait for someone to homer. And going further, they played those playoff games like there it was the regular season, and another game was coming tomorrow.

A strong manager establishing a different tone, strategy and playing style absolutely could have made an impact. Since you apparently don't know, managers do a lot more than fill out the lineup card.